Ministry Philosophy
The following piece was prepared on Nov. 23, 2020 by one of our founding leaders, Elder Hanchi Lin
Purpose Driven Church - A healthy church is a growing church. In 1998, three of us from ECC-SKC joined HCC leadership team to attend the Purpose Driven Church Seminar at Saddleback Church. Shortly after that both churches adopted the PDC model. The philosophy is: A healthy church is a growing church. And a healthy church will grow naturally. For our church to be healthy, it’s five purposes must be equally balanced. Our church offers God’s people to live with (Membership), God’s principles to live by (Maturity/Discipleship), God’s profession to live out (Ministry), God’s purpose to live for (Mission/Evangelism), and God’s power to live on (Magnification/Worship). Hence, we have 5 Commissions: Membership, Maturity, Ministry, Mission and Magnification.
A church of small groups - ECC-SKC is a church of small group. Currently with Chinese and English ministries we have 11 small groups. Seekers are welcome to each perspective group depending on location and languages (English/Mandarin/Cantonese). Through small group, we mature together with others in God’s Word and experience Christ’s love through caring for each other. By iron sharping iron, we discover God’s purpose in our lives.
Everyone is a minister - Someone made an observation that for many churches, only 20% of the people are serving while the other 80% are doing nothing. That is not true for ECC-SKC. Our motto is “Everyone is a minister”. Yet, we invite people to serve only when they are spiritually ready; and according to their spiritual gifts and commitment. People grow from attendants to members. Members become matured through discipleship. Then they will be invited to serve in different ministries. After they gain enough experience in serving God’s people, they would participate in local and overseas outreach (short-term or long-term mission). ECC-SKC used to have a mission pastor who spent up a quarter of a year in China. We also send short time mission teams to China, Eastern Europe and South America.
Biblical church leadership model - Shortly after the church was planted, a team was formed to prepare By-Laws and Articles of Incorporation for ECC-SKC. By-Laws of ECC-Seattle and HCC were studied carefully. Pastor Wally Wilson the founding pastor of HCC and Elder Larry York of HCC visited our team to share the background and reasons that HCC’s By-Laws were written. The team labored word by word, paragraph by paragraph during the writing of our By-Laws. It took over one year to complete the By-Laws. Then our Articles of Incorporation was reviewed and submitted to the State of Washington by our attorney.
ECC-SKC is an elders-rule church. It is important that elders are plural, not singular because this is the Biblical model of church leadership. Multiple leaders are essential for ensuring leadership integrity and guard against corruption. Pastor Wally Wilson had told us the painful past that almost caused HCC to split. Fortunately, the crisis was defused. But it changed HCC from the pastor-rule to elders-rule model. Elders are not rulers, they are just brothers the meet the qualification prescribed in 1 Timothy 3:1-6, Titus 1:6-9 and 1 Peter 5:1-4.
We submit to the Biblical principle of male leadership. While we hold men and women totally equal in God’s family, there is difference in the original birth order in the creation and the different roles God intended for each of us to perform.
Bless our ladies - The heart of a mother and the hands that rock a cradle. God ordains the family as well as the church. He designed and assigned specific roles for women at home and in the church. Ladies’ love and gentleness are often the closest imitation of Christ. If a home is without a mother, its children will suffer. Similarly, a church without faithful serving sisters, the church family will suffer. ECC-SKC has been richly blessed by the love and unselfish service of godly sisters from the very beginning. This legacy goes on. We praise God for our ladies!
Pressing On — ECC-SKC is 26 years old now. Though the original coworkers who started with us are fading away, our vision and mission will not. We are committed to reach out to the new Chinese immigrants through our Chinese ministry, our future is the English ministry which consists of second generation Chinese and people from other ethnic background. For we are in America; English is the major language used. For the similar reason, Paul chose to write his epistles in Greek, not in Hebrew. For that was the most commonly used language in his time. We do not possess great ambition to become a big church, because it is up to our Lord to decide. Our dream is ECC-SKC will be a great church that people love and trust. We share the heart of Paul the Apostle: “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:14).” Amen.
Hanchi Lin, Elder Larry York, Mrs. & Pastor Wally Wilson (founding pastor of HCC), Pastor Johnny To
Biblical Church Leadership Seminar: Elder David Tsang, Elder Hanchi Lin, Bro. Brodie Dychinco, Elder Bill Dunn (HCC), Pastor Jason Kim, Elder David Chang, Elder Cecil Chen, Bro. Changru Wang, Bro. Jack Kui (Jun. 5, 2011)